"Thumbs Up/Down" makes little sense in general, but when it comes to Asif Kapadia's "The Warrior," it's virtually repugnant to say just yes or no to such work of rare and consuming integrity.
This brilliant new British director made his debut at 29, when the 2005 Miramax US release of "The Warrior" appeared in its initial form in 2001. It is shot entirely - and spectacularly, with the painterly prowess of a Zhang Yimou - in India of long ago. It is a work onto itself, without regard to convention or audience comfort.
Kapadia does not bother to introduce his subject or to invite viewers into the world he depicts, he thrusts them into it with the first frame, and he doesn't stop... until about an hour into the film, there is a brief episode not involving gripping, threatening, breathtaking conflict.
As does the director, the great new star in the title role, Irfan Khan, is also making his debut, but he has a face, a presence that you feel you have always known. He plays the top warrior, the enforcer and executioner for a inhumanly cruel warlord, a man slaughtering men, women and children of the villages that don't pay their taxes in full. When he suddenly stops killing and seeks a different life, the hunter becomes the hunted.
From this point on, when Hollywood would follow one of two or three possible scenarios, Kapadia continues to enthrall the viewer, the story unfolding in its own unique, riveting way, never becoming slack, lazy, predictable. Intensity continues unabated, suffused with meaning and complexity.
From India's Rajasthani Desert to the Himalayan region of Himachal Pradesh, there are spectacular backdrops, but Roman Osin's camera is consistently on the faces - ancient, stoic faces (most of the cast never acted before), showing the barest signs of emotion - magnified in context and in the close-ups.
At the most horrendous moment of "The Warrior," the face on which we'd expect the reaction is suddenly hidden by the camera shifting up so that we see only a riot of colorful turbans. We both want to see that disappearing face, and are grateful that we don't have to witness it.
"The Warrior" takes control, arousing and maintaining intense feelings that you'll rarely experience in a theater. Which way the thumbs that wave high for the usual infantile drivel? Let's just break 'em.
